X is now back! What's causing Monday's repeated outages?

Elon Musk suggests that this outage is due to a massive cyberattack, and the Dark Storm team accepts it.

Experiencing disruptions on X (formerly Twitter)? You're not alone. The platform has faced a turbulent Monday, with intermittent outages plaguing users. Reports indicate X has gone down three times today, and there are whispers that this may not be the end.   

The initial outage was flagged by Downdetector around 10 AM ET. Users in the US and UK reported difficulty refreshing their feeds and timelines, encountering persistent "Something went wrong" messages. Some were caught in an endless reload loop. While X largely recovered within an hour, Downdetector's graph showed a rapid drop in outage reports, from approximately 22,000 to near zero.   

However, the respite was short-lived. A subsequent, larger outage hit, with over 40,893 reports flooding in. This time, the disruption extended beyond the website, affecting the server, app, and even Grok AI, which returned "Something went wrong" messages to user prompts. A third outage surfaced around 8 PM ET, further compounding user frustration.   

However, it appears X is now recovering. While Downdetector shows a small spike in reports, it's nowhere near the levels seen earlier. With only around 1,200 users reporting issues, this latest blip might not qualify as a full-fledged outage.  Although there's no official confirmation from X yet, user reports suggest that the platform is largely back online.

Elon Musk statement regarding the X outage. Screenshot: Elon Musk/X

The crucial question is: what's causing these recurring issues? X's owner, Elon Musk, has attributed the outages to a "massive cyberattack against X," suggesting a deliberate attempt to destabilize the platform. Musk hinted at a potential conspiracy involving a large, coordinated group or even a nation-state, stating, "We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Tracing…"   

Following his initial tweet, Musk gave an interview to Fox Business, shedding more light on the situation. "We’re not sure exactly what happened," he admitted, "But there was a massive cyberattack to try and bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area."

This series of events follows protests in the US, Britain, and other countries and attacks on Tesla stores, all occurring on the same day as the X outages.

The "Dark Storm" team has just claimed responsibility for the cyberattacks to X platform. This group, established three years ago, and reportedly employs fake and automated traffic to overload websites, resulting in prolonged service disruptions. It appears they may have targeted X with a similar strategy.   

The spotlight now shifts to Elon Musk's response and X's path to restoring normal service. Given the current geopolitical tensions, and the magnitude of the claimed cyberattack, the situation is certainly complex. Stay tuned for updates as this story unfolds.

We are consistently monitoring the situation, and will update this article as we acquire reliable information.

Updates as of March 11: X is recovering; Musk reveals details of a cyberattack in an interview with Fox Business.